Search This Blog

Drilling rig count jump led by Texas

The oil rebound in West Texas this week led the biggest surge in the drilling rig count since April 2014 — when oil was priced well above $100 a barrel.

The amount of drilling activity jumped in Texas as 17 active rigs were added to the Lone Star State, mostly in the busy Permian Basin. The total rig count increase of 27 rigs this week easily surpasses the mid-November increase of 20 rigs in one week, according to data collected by Baker Hughes oilfield services firm.

The hike in drilling activity is the first big change since the Organization of the Oil Exporting Nations agreed at the end of November to scale back oil production. OPEC leaders are meeting Saturday with Russia and other non-OPEC nations to discuss further reductions. The U.S. benchmark for oil was trading above $51 a barrel early Friday afternoon.

Of the 27 rigs added in the U.S., 21 of them are primarily seeking oil and the remaining six are drilling for natural gas.

The Permian Basin added 11 rigs, with three more in South Texas’ Eagle Ford Shale and two more in the Texas Panhandle’s Granite Wash. Colorado also saw a big jump with six rigs activated in the DJ-Niobrara Basin.

The total count is 624 rigs, up from a low of 404 in May, according to Baker Hughes. Of the total, 498 are primarily drilling for oil.
...

Nearly half of the active rigs are in the Permian Basin of West Texas. The OPEC market manipulation effort still looks fragile. Many of its members are still losing money at the current price and are trying to make it up in volume. The Saudis and the Russians are still burning through their reserves. I suspect they have a target price of around $60 a barrel.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Hill:
Democrats are more fearful about what 2018 holds than Republicans, according to a poll released early Monday.

The new Axios survey showed 55 percent of Democrats are more hopeful personally about the new year while 44 percent are more fearful.

Among Republicans, 90 percent are more hopeful about 2018, and just 9 percent are more fearful.

When asked about the world in general, 29 percent of Democrats said they are more hopeful, compared to 70 percent who said they are more fearful.

Pollsters found 67 percent of Republicans are more hopeful about the world in general in the new year, and 32 percent are more fearful....
While this may just reflect Democrats' anxiety about being out of power, the poll also demonstrates a sense of optimism by Republicans. Except for a few of the never Trumpers, most Republicans have been pleasantly surprised by the accomplishments Trump has put in place in his first year in office. I think that is because Republicans are getting better at filte…

Some injuries were reported and more than a dozen people were arrested after opposing sides clashed at dueling pro- and anti-Trump rallies, Berkeley, Calif., police said.
The liberals engage in projection by calling Trump supporters fascists, when it is in fact, their supporters who are sparking the violence in Califonia. There is a strain of intolerance for other points of view that is enforced by people dressed in black and their faces covered. They physically attack Trump supporters or other conservatives. These people may wear black but the are the Brownshirts of liberal fascism.

Kurt Schlichter:
When we gather together this Christmas, it’s going to be super-awkward since everybody is dead because Donald Trump pulled out of the Paris Climate Scam, repealed net neutrality, and cut taxes. The depredations of Genghis Khan, the Black Plague, and the repeal of the Obamacare mandate – these are pretty much the same thing. Santa Claus and all of our dreams are dead too.

On the plus side, since we are all dead there’s no one to make egg nog, which is the worst of all possible nogs.
...
Santa stuffed coal into the Democrats’ fishnet stockings this year, as well as all sorts of other fossil fuels. The President turned on the Keystone pipeline, unleashed our miners, and told the environmentalist whiners to go frack themselves. Growing up near San Francisco, a town memorably described by (I believe) comedian Bobby Slayton as “The city that makes its own gravy,” I got used to goateed, over-tatted progressive doofuses who imagined that the electricity that powered their iPa…